People are increasingly relying upon electronic devices to access various types of content, much of which can be confidential or otherwise sensitive to the user. For example, a user might store a list of personal contact information on an electronic device, or might install an application that provides access to that user's bank accounts. Accordingly, it can be desirable to protect against unauthorized access to a device. In many instances, such protection requires a user to enter a password or other identifying information each time that user wants to access the device. For many users such repetitive validation can be distracting or even annoying.
Further, once a user is validated using a password, for example, other people can access information on that device as long as the device is not re-locked. For example, a user might enter a password into a device and then step away from the device. If the device has a timeout period before the device goes into a lock mode, any person grabbing the device in the meantime can access that information. Thus, conventional security mechanisms must balance between user frustration at constantly entering identifying information and the level of protection for a given device.